The Touch
by Hayla
Summary: (songfic) When a mission goes awry, Heero searches for the one whose touch can heal his body and soul.


Disclaimer: Gundam characters and all the rest belong to their respective owners. I doubt I could make money off this even if I tried anyway! The song is **Ricky Martin**'s **_The Touch_** from his new album **Sound Loaded**. 

Note: This story formed right after the Big Ball fell and 2001 became official! I stayed up till five in the morning with this idea, hope you enjoy it! Drop me a line and Happy New Year!!

****

The Touch

by**: **Hayla

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~ 

Copper and salt... warm and thick... gagging hopelessly, I spat. What was it they said the world was made of? Blood, sweat... and tears. Yes, I had those too. They streamed freely down my face, the essence of my pain and anguish mixing with the mud that caked half my face. It's a strange mixture... blood... sweat... tears...

Darkness. I could feel it pressing in. Its weight was on my back like a fallen demon. No... I was the one falling. Falling helplessly and ever blindly into the proverbial abyss. There would be no light at the end of this tunnel. No hope for salvation or escape from the final judgment.

I let go. My legs were numb, the aching had finally faded away. The rubbery extensions to my tattered body had given up in the relentless force of escape. I cold only lie face down in the mud and wet grass, shivering from the cold. It was so cold...

I couldn't move any longer. It wasn't that my perfect training and perfect mind couldn't overcome the perfect situation I had found myself in, it was something else – something far more relevant. What is a perfect soldier but a relentless machine, trained in death and murder, without a soul. I wasn't perfect. I couldn't move. It wasn't because of the injuries, or the loss of blood, or the fact that sight was becoming an ever cumbersome task as the sweaty red and tearful salt stung the glazed surfaces. My soul – the very spirit that so defines mankind. It was weary – dying. Maybe already dead. It had failed me... was failing me. 

I turned onto my back, arms flung haphazardly to either side. My breaths ever labored against stinging lungs. Wet liquid seeps to the back of my throat and I coughed forcefully, my body raking violently with each heave. _I was running away from something... _

Chaos... explosions. Fire and that stinging sensation of acidic smoke from guns. People running..._ innocents._ Flying debris..._ something hit my head._ My hand reached up to my throbbing temple and the blood oozed over already stained fingers. Burning... burning flesh. _Remember... remember... remember... I was running from something..._

I stared up at the moon, it's crescent shape casting eerie shadows to dance about me that I couldn't understand or even attempt to comprehend. "No," I whispered hoarsely. "I was... I was..." _Running towards something... someone. _"But who... who..."

Hands were on me... light was around me. _What was this..._ They weren't my hands – or perhaps they were. I couldn't see anything but the moon – the only light in the dark world that had come to claim me whole. "Who," I whispered. "Who... who..."

I couldn't see them, but soft fingers pressed against my dry lips, silencing my nonessential ramblings. _Not my hands. _My mind faltered. I couldn't think... I didn't want to think. The moon faded – white light shimmering into the swirling black that was clearly defined by one who drifts off into the unmapped perdition of unconsciousness. _I was running towards someone..._

****

Oh, 

It's the middle of the night

And I'm reaching out for you

In the darkness I can feel your touch break through 

Tainted visions. False memories. Bitter battles... What was it that I was trying to find? Chaotic dreams. The nonsense that comes with fevers and drug induced illusions. Poisons of the mind that perverted and blurred the white and black of dreams and reality – swirling within utter disarray to leave nothing but shades of gray.

I saw without seeing in a waking dream. _Was this reality?_ Warm white pressed against my body, cloth bound carefully around my head, bones aching from readjustment...

I had to understand this existence – perhaps this hallucination that threatened to delude me. I sat up, eyes still dancing unintelligibly around unbelieving surroundings. _Remember..._ The fear of not knowing filled me for the first time. _Who..._

I turned my head, finding myself looking into beautiful eyes that calmly appraised my own wild ones. They pierced the blackness that threatened to surround me – freed me from false realities in an incomprehensible way. Their cool blueness washed like a peaceful wave over my dry and tortured soul that begged for understanding. I needed understanding. 

"It will be alright." I heard the voice that was not my own say. Peaceful... calm. _How is it so serene? I need to know... I need..._

My arms reached forward and I hungrily embraced this tranquility that was personified in front of me. I pressed the warm body into my chilled flesh, naked saved for the bandages and sheets. Glorious breath was hot against my neck. Hands pressed against my chest. I held on tightly, words with no meaning pass my lips and tease the honey colored hair beneath them. 

**__**

When I look into your eyes 

And your skin's against my skin 

I will hold you 'til the sun comes crashing in 

This warm innocence that I wrapped in the folds of my body, I can't let it go. _I won't let it go. _"Never..." 

When I closed my eyes, I saw the blood – deep crimson made even darker by the shadows of the night. My blood... others... _innocents_. The screaming shrills through my head and deafening sounds of explosions and battle fill my ears again, pounding relentlessly in my delusive mind. 

The salty taste returned. The pitiful liquid that refused to let me be trails down my cheeks, onto the soft, silken hair. I can't stop them. I feel my breath come out in labored waves as I try to fight the onslaught of tears in miserable failure.

**__**

Where would I be now 

Without the tenderness that you possess

Careful hands slid up my sculpted chest, passing over my collarbone, around my neck, touching my face. She pulls her body up so that those illuminating eyes are level with my own. The soulfulness that fills her shines from those cerulean pools. _So soft..._

Gently, her fingers run lightly across my cheeks, dancing over the wounded surface and absorbing the remaining tears with their heat. They come together at my chin, pausing momentarily before traveling up ever as softly to touch my lips, covering them and stopping the quivering ramblings.

**__**

The touch

Fear melted away, and wet eyes stared at her – no longer wild and tearful, but strong. I understand suddenly. There were things I had to do, impossible tasks that were deadly in means, but ever prosperous in intended effects. Clarity, that rare jewel that brings ultimate understanding to a haunted soul, was brought to me. _An unselfish gift..._

My hands moved lightly over the soft fabric of her blouse and rested upon thin shoulders. They traveled down slender arms – the roughness of my palms a sharp contrast to the softness of her skin. I reached up and clasped the hands that rested on my face. I squeeze gently

"I understand," I whispered against the silence of the room. "I... understand."

**__**

The touch that makes me strong 

That keeps me holding on 

I come to you when times are tough 

Your love is just enough 

I let myself be pushed back gently into the warmth of an unknown bed, surrounded by white and linen. Torturous thoughts are silenced by the tender rhapsody and soothed in the music of her light. The strength she showed and the compassion she gave so freely. A need satisfied... so much was given. So much that needed to be protected.

Burdens released, pain healed for a moment. Sleep's embrace teased at my body and I no longer fought against it. Nightmares would not come this time. I closed my eyes, but the body moved. Blindly, I grasped the hand that threatened to leave. I held tightly to it, not wanting the peace to leave as well, the heavenly ambassador to be taken away. 

"Stay," I mumbled through the thick haze of exhaustion. "Just stay..." And she did. Settling next to me and watching over me. _Stay for I will never leave you. Not tonight..._ My promise – an exchange for mutual needs. 

**__**

To lift me up so high 

There's nothing I won't give 

To be with you 

To reach for you, 

I live for the touch

Evening was pressing in. The warmth of the sun's caressing rays were being withdrawn by the eternal keeper of light. And the herald of the night was announcing its arrival with glorious bursts of color – red, velvet indigo, blue, saffron – all painting the sky in the perfected masterpiece of nature.

I watched from the window's ledge. Letting the cool breeze kiss my naked torso that was ravaged with bruises and scrapes. Light cotton pants covered the remaining half of my body – careful hiding from my sight, but unable to mask completely, the painful wounds that rested there as well.

My back faced the setting sun as I allow my eyes to readjust to the darkness of the room. I focused on the figure in the bed, resting peaceful unaware in the tender embrace of my sight.

The rationale in my mind fought for a logical reason in this creature of faith and beauty – the one that saved me from so much more than just death of the body. With conviction, she had reached out to breathe life back into my barren soul. _But why? _Shame and unworthiness crept into the ramblings of emotions that were sweeping through me in ever changing currents.

**__**

Oh, 

I wanna be the one you need

I need to be the one you see 

I gotta justify the faith you have in me 

My feet touched the carpet lightly as I pad over to her dreaming form. She had kept a constant vigil over me while I slept, soothing my wounds with cool caresses, and calming the raging fever that terrified my body with angelic whispers. 

I made my way gently onto the bed, sitting carefully by her slumbering side. Her face was soft and shone with an inner light that cast away and doubts of how much she meant to me at the moment. The healing angel with a heavenly touch that could change the very fabric of the spirit.

I brushed her cheek with the back of my hand, pushing away a fallen strand of hair, the golden tress like silk under my fingers. Her eyes fluttered open and stare at me with innocent beauty. "Heero," she breathed lightly, my name sounding almost ethereal upon the saintly lips.

I was left speechless in her presence. Unable to move as revelation broke through again...

**__**

You're the beauty in my life 

You're the sun that lights my soul 

You're the other half I need to make me whole

I leaned down, pressing my forehead onto her own, letting our breaths intermingle. I grabbed unto her shoulders, trying to steady my shaking body. Flashes returned... brilliant light... then thunderous noise followed by the deafening silence that pierced the very soul. I wasn't aware of how my body was reacting to the brutal recollections from the present past – I trembled violently, unable to stop, unwilling to forget.

She sat up, and soon I found myself held against her body, her arms encircling and protecting me from ramped visions of holocaust. I grabbed fistfuls of her blouse, pulling myself close to her body's heat, my hands shaking uncontrollably. I let her hold me, like a small child who is ever afraid of the dark.

"Blood..." I said dryly, my voice unwavering despite the rest of my body. "So much... pain." I began to ramble again. I felt a hand in my hair, smoothing the locks gently. Her voice singing sweetly to my battered mind. "Innocence... innocence..." I uttered helplessly.

"It's all right now." I can feel her lips on my chocolate tresses, her breath warm with calming words, whispering words, of comforts. So gentle... graceful... strong...

__

Yes... I was saved now. Saved in many more ways then I ever though possible.  
  
**_Who would I be now _**

Without the warmth you bring 

To everything

"I can't escape you," I said lowly, my shaking finally subsiding and allowing me to think with clarity and purpose. "Wherever... whenever... it is always you."

I pushed slowly away, looking into her eyes with hope that final understanding could be conveyed between us once and for all. I still clutched her shirt, making it impossible for her to leave, letting her stay until everything between us was finished.

"Heero..."

She tried to silence me, shaking her head slowly. But explanations are rare and few in a world where fatalistic dreams of a peaceful existence are left to the whim and fancies of those too young to know any better – to know the true harsh and cruel world. But I would have to make her understand. _You must understand..._

****

All my life has been a journey here to you

Every road and river bought me closer to the touch

"There's so much, Relena. So much that is never said." I faltered for words. Thoughts running rampidly through my head, fighting for a voice that couldn't comply with all causalities at once. "The things I've done..."

"Shhh..." Velvet finger tips against moving lips. _How can one thing come to mean so much..._

****

The touch

I turned my face into her palm, kissing the delicate skin. I released her shirt and cup my hands on her face, pulling her to me. Her hands rested at my neck. Our mouths are almost touching, hot breath warming the cold space that one had kept us so far apart. It melted away the icy barrier that I once thought I needed – that I thought was the only way. _How foolish I was..._

People come into your life without seeming reason – to test you, challenge your beliefs. Some come to change you, persisting to let you know that it is not training or war that makes you powerful. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to let you know that life is precious because of who you share it with, no matter how bad things appear, or how horrid the world threatens to be. 

Simple things bring life. Gestures... words... a smile... a touch... 

**__**

The touch that makes me strong 

That keeps me holding on 

I come to you when times are tough 

Your love is just enough 

"Why," I choke. "How... how do you do this to me? Why do you care..."

I felt the soft whispers of her words as they danced lightly over my face, he mouth so close to mine as she spoke of life... precious life. Her words filled me up with hope and a passion that I could never understand fully until that moment – that one pivotal moment when ultimate absolution was given from the very heart and soul of another. And her answer... ever sweet to my spirit ended with the most simplistic yet necessary word of all.

"Because.... just because."

Because some things don't need explanation. Feelings that are given voice rarely portray properly the tenderness and love that one brings. Overall that unending love...

**__**

To lift me up so high 

"I'll do anything for you," I promised solemnly, justifying the overwhelming need within me to protect this innocence that gave benevolently to a much tainted soul.

**__**

There's nothing I won't give 

To be with you

To reach to feel the touch

The promise was sealed with the perfection of a kiss – her mouth so soft and gentle against my own. A threshold was broken within two spirits. I could feel it for the first time. That need for belonging. To belong to someone and to call them your own. That private emotion that could overcome tyrannical powers existed in a pure force of light, hope, and faith. 

I could feel her tender nature within me, replenishing with a new strength – leaving behind once and for all the stubborn intensity that threatened to destroy me with its coldness and compassionless perfection. The basic needs of a man could be reached so simply... I needed only to experience it to understand once and for all.****

I broke away slowly, letting my mouth trail kisses across her cheek, and to her ear as I embrace her. "I understand now, Relena" I whispered. I could see with absolute clarity what I was missing, and what I would never be able to do without. "I understand..."

**__**

I live… for the touch

~End~

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